2012/06/18

2012/05/01

The Feast


  This is a family lunch on the occasion on some occasion. Regretably, family celebrations often turn  into a big excessive eating . The consumerist spirit of modern society forces the abundance of food and overeating as a measure of enjoyment.

  This is my only painting done in this pointillist manner, which came naturally, and as a result of my search for the most direct method to paint what i have envisioned .The memory of my Family's feasts lingered as a hazy picture in my mind. The grotesquerie in teh painting reveals the personal relation with the subject and my commentary on the personalityof the portrayed. I leave it to the viewer to come up with his own stories about this family's sunday lunch meetings.

Kisseve art paintings family portrait
Ili Eve,  "The Feast",  2011,  acrylic on canvas

2012/04/30

Trinity

Some time ago I found an old b&w photo of my grandmother, holding  the hands of two children - my mother and her sister. They were all standing in an endless winter field. That scene provoked me to do the painting, althought the figures I painted look more like aliens than normal people. I used high key -low color saturation to convey the sense of emptiness and bleak coldness. 



Ili Eve painting Kisseve art
Ili Eve "Trinity" 2010 acrylic on board


2012/04/29

Fan Art of Diablo 3 Barbarian

Hey guys. Recently I made a fanart piece for an art contest ran by Blizzard, a video game company, where you had to portray a protagonist from their upcoming ARPG Diablo 3 (great games, check them out if you haven't already) I wanted to do some kind of fan art tribute to my favorite PC games for some time, and now seemed like the right moment.
I'm aware that my art style and "technique" isn't exactly what the gaming industry would consider to be prize winning material, not to mention that some of the guys that do fantasy and sci-fi stuff for a living are waaaay out of my league. What I'm trying to say here is that I did it for my own personal amusement.

Since the deadline was looming in, I had only three days to work on it, so I couldn't put all the little details and attain the polish that I wished, but that can be done later, so no worries on that front. Considering I never actually painted armor and stuff like that before, it turned out ok-ish in my opinion, or at least bearable.

When I get my preliminary drawings scanned, I'll go trough my thought process behind creating this work and talk in detail about it. I hope you like this (almost) finished piece!

I present you the female Barbarian.

KissEve art paintings
Barbarian



2012/04/27

Our Art Shop


We are happy to announce that our new shop for art, art prints and paintings opened on etsy.com here is a link: http://www.etsy.com/shop/KissEveArt

2012/04/19

Portraits

Portraits

Those are some portraits I've made. Most are done from the model in a couple of 6-8 hour sessions. My biggest influences in this genre would be Diego Velasquez and Frans Hals. Well, not that my works look like anything done by those great masters, I'd say they've influenced mostly what I think defines a good portrait and painting in general, and that's far more important than any techniques or secret methods, in my book.
So, here they are. Click on any of the images to see it in higher resolution.

Kisselkov oil painting art
Silvia

Joro

DoB













 Vesko







Prof . Stanislav Pamukchiev







The little Monika







Jani in da club

                                                                  Copyright: Kisselkov

2012/04/18

some drawings III

 These are my latest drawins, inspired by the spring

Ili Eve drawing, watercolour, paper
Ili Eve "Chayka"


                                                     


Ili Eve - drawing, watercolor, paper
Ili Eve "Sun behind tree"









                                                                                                                                                           





Ili Eve - drawing, watercolor, paper
Ili Eve "The birds"










  

Ili Eve drawing, watercolor, paper
Ili Eve "Winter"
  


Ili Eve "Weeping Willow", watercolor
Ili Eve "Weeping willow" II
                         
                                                                     
 Ili Eve, Sunset, tree
Ili Eve "sunset"

2012/04/06

some drawings II






Ili Eve drawing, ink, watercolor, paper


Ili Eve - "The Judge" 2011




Ili Eve drawing, ink, paper
                                                                  Ili Eve - "Josian" 2011                                                                                                                        





Ili Eve drawing, ink, watercolor, paper



Ili Eve - "Dea" 2011



2012/04/05

Random thoughts on art and more


Today's entry will be comprised of random, personal opinions on visual arts and more. Stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else, but I'd like to share it anyway. So here goes, in random order and not related to each other.. (..or are they?)

Any piece of art, be it a painting, musical piece, vase or mural, doesn't need a message in order to be "relevant", it's reason to be is the sole fact of it's existence. For example, many of the greatest pieces of art are religiously themed. Being an atheist, that fails to connect with me the same way that it would with a religious person, but I can still find the work really good for many other reasons, objective or not. In this context, thoughts like "what did the author wanted to say with that?" or "yeah, this is pretty, but I can't see the meaning behind it" are just amusing brain exercise.

The main components of an image (composition, colour, pattern, structure, perspective, etc.) are what the image as a whole is. All the Social relevancy, symbols, hidden messages or naked ladies in the world can't make any difference, if the basics are messed up.

Intellectual jibberish that gets thrown around in the fine art world...Terms borrowed from philosophy, semiotic analysis, pompous and condescending behaviour and other such practices fully justify the "ivory tower" preconception of most people towards the "elite" art circles. The truth is, like in most cases, that it's only partially true. There are many nice, smart people with their feet firmly on the ground to be found even here, if you search carefully.

The professional artist is a schizo-like beast, extremely egocentric, and yet not taking himself completely serious. At the same time. % )

And to finish it off, one slightly metaphysical: In every honest work of art you feel an echo of the author's soul. An emotion maybe, or his zeitgeist, it is all there. That's why seeing, hearing, sensing or making art is so fulfilling endeavor, and that's why it is part of the human essence.

2012/04/01

A Seizure

I made this painting as a part of my graduation at the National Academy Of Arts. It is inspired by the renaissance period portraits, where the model, dressed in his/ hers most splendid attire ( often times a rich person, only they could afford a portrait) is situated in front of a panoramic, idyllic landscape.


The inner tension is showing clearly in my expression, and the hands are convulsively clenched as if in a state of  hysteria. The serene backdrop with its vivid green fields and clear skies, by contrast heightens the overall feeling of lost balance, where one has lost his place in the world, and feels alone and different.
  








The full house

  This is a great house full of various creatures. At first you see only the facade with a closed windows, but if you try to open one of them you'll find a miniature world behind it. The windows are made of polymer clay, and they can be opened, they are attached to the canvas, creating 3D effect.
  Each of the 23 different windows open to tell it's own story.


                                                           


 


   


  


 



 



 





some drawings

Thеse are my latest drawings.  I used acrylics, pen and ink.






The Smile






Homo, Ursus




The sea
                                                                                                                                             

    

  
"Gwinplaine"






Barkilfedro









                                 



2012/03/27

Intro

Introduction

Hello there, potential reader. I figured i should introduce myself properly, because after all this blog is about personal observations, ramblings and opinions on art, art-making and stuff in general, so knowing some more about me could make my posts look a bit more meaningful or interesting than they are.

So, here we go. My name is Stamen Kisselkov, in my mid-twenties, trained and schooled in fine arts, mainly representational drawing and painting, the oldschool way, brushes and stuff, portraying naked people, vases, dressed people, flowers in vases...you get the picture. I don't really know if it would be interesting to tell you how I got into arts, because frankly I don't know too, it just happened so naturally. Since I can remember, I always drew, and what's more important, i was always better than my peers at it, so i didn't ever thought about doing something else. Maybe the fact that I was surrounded by books about painting and painters all my life wasn't detrimental, either. My mother is an art historian, go figure...

Now don't get me wrong, I'm really passionate about what I do, it's not like I paint and go "..yeah, whatever, dude, go with the flow and stuff.." In fact most of the people around me don't like to talk about art with me, because I always have a strong opinion about those things.(Yeah, I'm THAT cool)

Seriously, though, art is something special. The creative drive that pushes you to the limit, the satisfaction you get when something goes the right way, the pleasure of seeing a good artwork..thats the good stuff, that drives me, and fellow artists I suppose, forward, trough hardships and tough times. Sounds a bit cheesy, but it's true. Ok, I won't tell you that I think art is really important in everybody's life, and how I believes it is to the soul what food is to the stomach.

Well, that's enough about me, now go and eat some nice pictures and music!

2012/03/26

Size does matter


..even in art! The physical dimensions of the area you are drawing/painting on are very important. This fact gets overlooked because it's so obvious, but it shouldn't be neglected. For example, most beginners start out on smaller surfaces, because it's easier to keep all the elements of the drawing in relation to each other, the work is easy to see as a whole (mainly because of the way our vision works) and it requires shorter hand motions to draw even the largest details in the piece, compared to working on a larger scale.(easyer to control those pesky lines' flow!)
Smaller scale works have their strenghts, that are unique to them, too, but I'm focusing more on the point that the size you work in changes the way you draw/paint/, organize the composition etc. which, I think, is really interesting. During life drawing sessions I often wondered "why I distort the proportions of the model the exact same way as last time, even though I consciously try not to?", "Why sometimes my composition works out well, and another time it doesn't, although I am using the same principle?" and many times the answer was right before me, the size of the sheet I was drawing on! Well, I found that out years later, of course. Working on a format, not suited for the distance between you=>your workplace=>the model often proves to give bad results, especially on the perspective and foreshortening in your work.
"Well, that's common knowledge! You just have to have enough space to back away from your workplace to see the piece as a whole", you say, an you'd be completely right! The problem is, ideal conditions for life drawing are rarely present. Packed studios, wall behind you, not enough space between your easel and the model etc. are what is often the reality. So, one should constantly think about this in order not to let such obstacles hinder him...for years, in some cases. *cough*..me..*cough*

This can be employed to mix things up a bit too, if you are stuck burned out, or stupefied by the complexity of such arduous tasks as painting naked women realistically, whip out your biggest/smallest sheet/canvas and see what could happen, I bet you'll be surprised of the result. Dunno if the surprise would be a pleasant one, but a surprise s a surprise nonetheless!

Illustration for Inspiration


  The best way to see a painting is to go to the museums, galleries or other place where you can feel the vibrancy of every brush stroke, to see delicate transparency of layers or the lucidity of canvas. The live dialogue between the viewer and the painting can not be recreated by any other means. A digital reproduction is never an accurate representation of the real painting.
  Illustration, being specifcally tailored for mass production, is better suited for viewing on the monitor. I often look at the work of several illustrators for inspiration. It's always nice to discover new artists on the internet.
  Yoshitaka Amano is one of my favorite artists, here are some examples of his gorgeous works:









Kay Nielsen is one of  "The Golden Age" illustrators from the early XX century












Black and white drawings by Aubrey Beardsley





Self-Portrait